


Broken Grace

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Series: The Grace 'verse [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean!Michael, Fallen!Michael, M/M, Michael!Dean, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Free Will head out to Bobby's to prepare for what's coming. Michael needs to take back his position as Commander of the Host, Gabriel needs to be less annoying, and Sam needs to get a clue. And then, of course, there's Lucifer.</p><p>Third in the Grace 'verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Grace

Michael stared down at the t-shirt incredulously.

 

“I’m about to go kick some sense into the Host and re-establish myself as Commander, and you want me to wear _this?_ ”

He brandished it at Gabriel.

 

‘This’ was a form-fitting white t-shirt with ‘TEAM FREE WILL’ written across the front, and ‘MICHAEL’ and a pair of stylised orange wings across the back.

 

“Oh, come on, Michael,” Gabriel argued. “It’s a solidarity thing. Everyone else is wearing them.”

 

"That’s because you forced us into them and we can’t get them off,” Sam sulked, sending Gabriel his ‘I can’t believe you are making me do this’ bitchface.

 

“I would like to state that I in no way agreed to this attire,” Castiel added, looking about as displeased as he ever got.

 

“Michael.” Gabriel’s eyes glinted. “Think how much fun we’ll have making Raphael wear one of these.”

 

Michael paused.

 

Sam groaned.  
 

* * *

 

They’d all turned up at Bobby’s the day before, Sam and Michael by car, Gabriel and Castiel by flight.

 

It wasn’t like Michael minded flying, but it was nice to drive somewhere for a change – it gave him some time alone with Sam, for a start, and he hadn’t had much of that lately –and besides, if he turned up without the Impala then Bobby would probably think he was a pod-person and try to shoot him, especially with the unbelievable story they had for him.

 

It was also time away from Gabriel. Michael loved him dearly, but Gabriel took the concept of ‘annoying little brother’ to entirely new levels. It was like Gabriel had a mental list of responsibilities and right under ‘Heaven’s Messenger – _defunct_ ’ it said ‘annoy the crap out of Michael.’ There were times Michael just wanted to smite the little jerk.

 

Just to make things even better, Gabriel had also been trying hard to get Sam’s attention lately, only Sam was almost a clueless as Dean had once been, and simply believed that the archangel was being both unusually thoughtful and exasperating by turns.

 

Only this morning, for example, after considerately providing Sam with a big-ass salad, one of the finicky fancy ones that cost a ridiculous amount for something mostly made up of green leafy things and vegetables with weird names, Gabriel had gone and done something to Sam’s laptop so that it played ‘Candyman’ whenever Sam logged on, and nothing Sam did could get rid of it. He’d spent half the damn trip playing with the settings before Michael told him that if he heard Christina Aguilera start up one more time, the laptop was getting smote.

 

Sam had sent him a ‘you are unreasonable and unsympathetic’ bitchface, but shut the thing down.

 

“So,” Sam said as Michael drove, “you and Cas, huh?”

 

“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “Me and Cas.”

 

“Gabriel explained the whole ‘the word brother is just what we use in human languages’ thing,” Sam said. “And that it’s not actually incest.”

 

“I’m not _that_ kinky, Sam.”

 

Sam made a vaguely pained face, like he didn’t want to contemplate Michael’s kinks or lack thereof, thank you very much.

 

“I guess it makes sense, though. I mean, Cas _Fell_ for you.”

 

Michael smiled fondly.

 

“Yeah. He did.”

 

“Dude, he’s not even here, so you can stop making googly eyes.”

 

“He’s in _luuuurrvvvve_ ,” Gabriel piped up from the backseat. “Sam, my tall friend, would you like a Jolly Rancher?”

 

“Um,” said Sam, accepting the sudden appearance of another archangel in the car with equanimity. “I thought you and Cas were flying to Bobby’s?”

 

“Well sure, but we’ve got like, four hours to kill until then.” Gabriel stuck a lollipop in his mouth, and leaned forward and tucked a wrapped on into Sam’s shirt pocket. “So, this is boring. How about some music?”

 

“Gabriel,” Michael said from the driver’s seat, “if I have to share a car with you the entire way, I may kill you.”

 

Gabriel frowned.

 

“Thanks ever so.”

 

“Gabe, this is the first time I’ve had Sam to myself since I turned angel again, okay? So scram.”

 

“Fulfilling your orders fills my heart with joy, Kommandant Michael,” Gabriel sneered. “Have fun being locked in a tiny space with Michael for the next four hours, Sam.”

 

Gabriel popped out again, after dumping a book in Sam’s lap and giving the back of Michael’s seat the finger and a hostile stare.

 

“He just flipped me the bird, didn’t he?” Michael asked without looking around.

 

But Sam was looking at the book.

 

“It’s a first-edition _A Christmas Carol_ ,” he said in stunned awe. “Dean. Is this _real?_ ”

 

Reverent fingers caressed the cover.

 

Michael spared a glance over his shoulder.

 

“Yep. Genuine article. He probably stole it from somewhere.”

 

Sam just held his new book and stared with worshipful, possessive eyes. You’d have to break his fingers to make him let go, Michael thought.

 

“I think you owe Gabriel a thank you,” he told Sam.

 

Sam’s eyes went wide in consternation.

 

“Oh my God, Dean, how am I supposed to thank him for _this?_ ”

 

There were a number of suggestions Michael could have made, but every one of them was R-rated, so he paused to compose a reply that wouldn’t make Sam sink in mortification.

 

He wondered if now was the time to give the ‘how to tell if someone likes you’ talk, but decided no way, if he had to sort out his brothers’ love lives it was going to be with a fuck-load of whiskey at his elbow.

 

“He knows you don’t have anything to give him, Sam,” Michael told his littlest brother. “But he likes spending time with you, so let him do that, and if you see anything you can do for him, maybe think about it. He just gave you the book because he knew you’d like it.”

 

Sam nodded thoughtfully, eyes trailing back to the book like he was being compelled.

 

“Dean – do you mind if I –?”

 

“Go ahead, Sammy,” Michael sighed in resignation. “Read your book.”  
 

* * *

 

As the car neared the boundary line of Bobby’s property, Michael slowed right down.

 

He could see the wards, stretching up towards the sky and curving in like a huge shimmering, heavily-fortified bubble just waiting to eject the unwelcome.

 

The wards were a mass of wildly differing elements all slapped together at different times – crude anti-demonic protections and blocky pagan blood-based wardings had precise Enochian sigils woven in among them.

 

As the Impala crossed the property line Michael spread his wings and turned sideways in his seat, so that the wards slid harmlessly over him, clinging like cobwebs as they passed over his wings before slipping away.

 

Sure, Michael could have just parted them and barged through like the archangel he was, but where was the finesse in that?

 

Besides, if he fought the wards like that, it would only weaken them, and considering who was behind them, he wanted them as strong as possible.

 

“Dude, we’re here,” he told Sam, who was still engrossed in his book.

 

“What?” Sam looked up, his eyes a little vacant.

 

Michael rolled his eyes as he pulled up in front of Bobby’s place. “I said we’re here, bitch.”

 

“Jerk,” Sam retorted automatically. “Oh, right.”

 

Michael forebore from shaking his head, and just smiled as little as he got out of the car.

 

Bobby rolled outside as Dean approached.

 

“Hey, Bobby,” he grinned.

 

“What’ve you boys done now?” the hunter asked gruffly. “Sam was being damn cagey on the phone.”

 

Dean cleared his throat.

 

“Uh, it’s kind of complicated. But, uh, the good kind of complicated.”

 

He scratched the back of his head, wondering how to go about this.

 

“What the hell does that mean?” Bobby demanded.

 

“Hi, Bobby,” Sam greeted him. “I take it Dean’s trying to explain why we’re here.”

 

He was grinning a bit, the asshole.

 

“So far he hasn’t explained a damn thing,” Bobby commented brusquely.

 

“Why am I totally not surprised?” Gabriel asked rhetorically, he and Castiel appearing out of nowhere.

 

“ _You!_ ” Bobby exclaimed, reaching for his gun. “ _Damn Trickster!_ ”

 

“ _Whoa!_ ” Michael held his hands out in a ‘hold on’ gesture. “Whoa, he’s okay, Bobby.” He turned his head to glare at his pain-in-the-ass brother. “The hell, Gabriel? Would it kill you to _not_ be a pain in my ass?”

 

“What?” Gabriel affected innocence. “You said meet you at Bobby’s, we met you at Bobby’s.” He looked angelic.

 

“That is true,” Castiel added helpfully, because he was a traitorous little bastard with an ill-timed sense of humour.

 

“Are you _working_ with this menace?” Bobby asked darkly.

 

“Sort of,” Michael sighed. “Bobby, meet the archangel Gabriel.”

 

“Hey there!” Gabriel gave a ditzy little finger-wave.

 

“What?” Bobby glared between them all. “This –”

 

“Is Gabriel, seriously,” Dean interrupted. “Yeah, I know, worst angel ever –”

 

“Hey, I object to that! The worst angel ever is definitely Zachariah. Or wait, no, there was that kid under Raphael, the one who was – lemme think, what was his name again? _Balthazar!_ That’s right _._ He’s _definitely_ the worst angel ever. He’s got style, though, gotta give him that.”

 

“– but trust me, Bobby,” Michael continued, because sadly, he was already getting used to being surrounded by a chorus of obstructive little brothers again and having to just work around or ignore them, “that’s nowhere near the most complicated thing, right now.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Bobby asked suspiciously, still holding his gun and darting vaguely murderous glances at Gabriel, who was grinning.

 

“Yeah.” Michael took an unnecessary breath. “You remember what we told you about Anna Milton, who turned out to be an angel?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“Yeah, well, thing is, she’s not the only one who used to be an angel.” Michael spread his arms in a ‘here you go’ kind of gesture. “I’m – and I know how this sounds – I’m an angel, Bobby.” He waited a beat for this to sink in. “I’m Michael.”

 

Sam and Gabriel watched eagerly for Bobby’s reaction; Castiel gazed impassively, while Michael just waited.

 

“ _Michael?_ ” Bobby repeated incredulously. “You’re telling me that the punk-ass kid I used to babysit is the _archangel_ _Michael?_ ”

 

Sam snorted.

 

“Yeah, that about covers it,” Michael said.

 

“Bullshit.”

 

Michael looked at Sam.

 

Sam made a ‘you’re on your own’ face, looking pretty amused.

 

Michael grumbled to himself, but with a flow of Grace brought his wings forwards into the physical plane.

 

Right before the wards kicked him out on his ass.

 

“Dammit!” Michael said in exasperation as his knees hit the dirt outside the property line. His wings slipped back into the ethereal plane, but the wards refused to let him back in.

 

“ _Frigging wards!_ ” Michael bellowed at the top of his lungs.

 

An instant later Gabriel was standing in front of him, just within the wards.

 

“Hey bro. Nice lung capacity you’ve got, there.”

 

“Tell Bobby his wards took manifesting my wings as a threat and won’t let me back in,” Michael said grumpily.

 

Gabriel’s eyes brightened.

 

“Will do.”

 

He vanished.

 

A moment later he was back, looking amused.

 

“Bobby says, and I quote, ‘ _what the hell am I supposed to do about that, idjit?’_ ” Gabriel grinned. “Man has a way with words.”

 

“I’m not above smiting the Messenger,” Michael growled warningly.

 

Gabriel just stuck a candy in his mouth and waited to see what Michael would do next.

 

Michael sighed.

 

“Tell him to say aloud, ‘ _I trust the archangel Michael and grant him sanctuary.’_ ”

 

Gabriel’s eyebrows rose, and he returned to the house.

 

Michael felt the wards ripple, and reappeared in the spot he’d been standing in when the wards had tantrumed on him.

 

“Okay, I’m convinced,” said Bobby.

 

He promptly smacked Michael over the back of the head.

 

“Now explain what the hell’s going on before I whup your ass.”

 

Michael found himself having to restrain the fond grin that rose to his lips.

 

He started to explain the situation as briefly and succinctly as possible.

 

“Damn fool angels,” Bobby grumbled, once he’d finished.

 

Bobby glared at Gabriel, who put on his best innocent ‘who me?’ face, the one that

had always made Dean want to punch him on principle.

 

“Angel or not, you’re still a tricky pain-in-the-ass, and if you take one step out of line I’m shooting you and breaking out the holy oil,” the hunter threatened gruffly. “You understand me?”

 

“Sure.” Gabriel wore an expression of bemused amusement. “You know, I like you.”

 

“The feeling ain’t mutual.” Bobby glared ferociously.

 

“Yeah, somehow I can tell,” Gabriel nodded.

 

Castiel gave the slightest snort, and everyone looked at him. He gazed back with cool impassivity, but Michael could see the casual angle of his wings and the amused light in his eyes.

 

“I do not think you have endeared yourself to him,” Castiel offered.

 

“Got that right,” Bobby muttered. “Come on. Get your asses inside so you can explain what the hell’s going on.”

 

 

 


End file.
